State Political Correspondent for The Age

SOME of the state's professional bush firefighters could strike next month, during one of the worst fire seasons in years, if the Victorian government fails to sign off on a new enterprise agreement.

Workers and managers at the Department of Sustainability and Environment agreed to a new work deal last October but Finance Minister Robert Clark is yet to sign off on it.

The DSE has about 2000 full-time staff who work on fire and land management across the state, which includes controlled burns in the bushfire off season.

Australian Workers Union state secretary Cesar Melhem said workers were fed up with the way the government had treated them and unless the deal was finalised this week, members would consider protected industrial action in February, which would include bans and stop work actions.

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''It's the last thing we want to do in the current environment, but the government is giving us no option,'' Mr Melhem said. ''The government has no excuse. Our members have had a gutful of the way the government has treated them.'' He said the overriding principle of any action was to not undermine the safety of Victorians.

Last week, Mr Melhem wrote to Mr Clark urging him to sign off on the agreement.

''It is unacceptable that the Baillieu government can sit in the creature comforts of Treasury Place whilst our hard-working members are swatting flies in a horse paddock filled with dung at Heywood; sleeping in tents that reach temperatures in excess of 50 degrees Celsius during the day; and being forced to spend time away from their families during the holiday period, whilst nothing happens,'' he wrote.

It is understood the government's assessment of the EBA will be completed soon.

A government spokesman said the statements made by the AWU appeared to be based on a misunderstanding of the relevant procedures for approval of EBAs that had applied under the current government and the previous Labor government. ''The proposed EBA needs to be assessed for consistency with workplace relations policy before the proposed EBA is agreed to by government.''

He said the assessment was under way and once an agreed EBA was approved by Fair Work Australia, the workers would receive the agreed pay increase backdated to the commencement date in the original agreement.

At the end of 2012, 46,000 hectares of public land had been burnt off as part of controlled burns by the DSE, which a spokesman said was twice the historical performance for that time of year.

The planned burn program target is 250,000 hectares in 2012-13, which is part of plan to scale up towards 390,000 hectares a year in future.